Threads of Crime

BY JULIA RANNEY

PHOTOGRAPHY: SARAH REESE

THREADS OF CRIME THREADS OF CRIME THREADS OF CRIME

On August 14th, 1996, Karen Wetterhahn, a Chemistry Professor at Dartmouth College, spilled a drop of mercury onto her lab glove. On June 8th, 1997, she was dead. As Wetterhahn believed that her gloves would protect her from the toxic substance’s effects, she did not remove them. Yet, the poisonous compound seeped through her glove and entered her bloodstream in a matter of seconds. Six months later, Wetterhahn could not walk, see, or talk. Despite rigorous treatment to remove the poison, she slipped into a five-month coma before her death. An autopsy indicated that her blood contained twenty-two times the amount of mercury typically found in the human body. Wetterhahn’s untimely death resulted from the glove that failed to protect her from the lethal toxin.

While this tragedy occurred in a controlled lab environment, it is a reminder that humans rely on clothing for protection. Clothes cover and comfort us, yet these seemingly harmless garments have been the cause of death and disease throughout history. In the 1800s, dresses and hair ornaments were dyed using green pigment made from copper and arsenic, highly toxic substances that have caused illness and death. In the nineteenth-century, bobbinet, tulle, and gauze were used to fashion evening gowns and ballet costumes; these garments caught fire from gas or stage lighting and incinerated the wearer. In early modern India, khilats, Arabic for “robes of honour,” were presented as gifts. It was common for the giver to poison or contaminate the robe with a disease, ultimately killing or infecting the garment’s receiver.

Forensic knowledge of clothing can also help solve crimes rather than commit them. To the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, a ripped hat or a stained sleeve could prove a suspect’s guilt or innocence. Today, television shows depict criminologists and forensic scientists convicting offenders or identifying victims from footprints, fibres, or bloodstained garbs. Clothing and accessories can be essential clues in criminal cases, proving fashion has vital connections to seemingly unrelated fields, including criminology. This rejects the stereotype that fashion is frivolous, feminine, and trivial.

Additionally, the word ‘clue’ derives from mythology and textile history. A ‘clew,’ or a ball of thread was used in the Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur myth. In this legend, Ariadne, the King of Athens’ daughter, gives Theseus, an Athenian hero, a clew during his quest to kill the Minotaur living in the labyrinth. Theseus ties one end of the thread to the maze entrance and, after successfully killing the monster, follows the line back out to safety. A second definition of ‘clew’ was born, “something that guides a person out of a mysterious or difficult situation.” Over time, the spelling changed from ‘clew’ to ‘clue,’ establishing the origin of clues in the English language.

Today, clues from pieces of clothing have become important bits of evidence in official police investigations. In Surrey, England, fashion historian and forensic garment analyst Amber Butchart identifies murder victims by dating the clothes they were found in and analyzes fibres, rips, and bloodstains to catch perpetrators. She has been training police officers and detectives in what to look for at crime scenes from a fashion perspective and how to record this information correctly. Specifically, recognizing certain types of fastenings, labels, and fabrics that can be essential when dating and identifying garments, manufacturers, criminals, and victims.

The FBI has made use of fashion forensics since the early 2000s. Dr. Richard Vorder Bruegge of the FBI’s Special Photographic Unit used worn denim jeans to identify bank robbers. Utilizing surveillance film, Bruegge demonstrated that individual pairs of jeans found in the convict’s homes have unique identifying characteristics (ridges and valleys in the denim fabric), which are created in the manufacturing process and enhanced by wear. In forensic environments, these characteristics can be matched to CCTV footage to sentence criminals.

Previously, forensic science has been solely concerned with DNA. When we are preoccupied with that focus, we miss the opportunity to look at other important factors, including material culture. Clearly, clothing and accessories play a complex yet central role as murder weapons and protection, forensic evidence, participants in solving crimes, and as identifying villains in the present-day.

Detectives are not typically known for their fashion sense, so now it is time to call the fashion police.